Financial woes central in Okmalumkoolkat short film

In the music video two lovers enjoy a day at the beach. It’s a picnic. Sweet nothings and laughter are exchanged. Later they’re at a party that is gatecrashed by the girl’s father, who says whoever wishes to be with his daughter must first pay lobolo.

Lobolo can be one of two things: a moment of pride or stressful financial pressure. Money can’t buy you happiness, they say, and yet people’s happiness finds a way to rely on a bride price.

In the 14-minute short, Okmalumkoolkat takes the audience through a couple of days in the life of Smanga, a musicians who also works in a minimarket. The film opens with Smanga packing tinned fish in the store where Noluthando comes in to buy airtime. They had met at a gig the previous night. They vibe and exchange numbers. It’s love at first sight. Smanga is smitten. If he were a cartoon his heart would beat outside his chest, his jaw drop and his eyes turn to pulsating hearts. It’s like he’s never been in love before.

Okmalumkoolkat uses his own music throughout the film. The featured songs are lifted from his debut album Mlazi Milano. In the scene where Smanga meets Noluthando for the first time the beat from ‘Amalobolo’ plays and sets the mood. ‘Ntwana Yam’ plays while he is on his way to a thrift store and later the beach.

Okmalumkoolkat has an eclectic sense of fashion. Over and above his desire to be with the girl, he has to look good. He makes it a point to buy a fanny pack. It’s in fashion again but typically worn around the shoulder. Fanny packs, or bum bags, are an accessory with a history of more than 5 000 years. Apparently they found a bum bag on Ötzi, a Tyrolian mummy who like Koolkat knew that it would make an impression on the fairer sex. But what’s a fanny pack good for if there’s no money for lobolo in it?

Most of the film plays like a documentary and gives the story a realness that suspends disbelief. It is seamlessly tied together with everyday language and its heartfelt dialogue is best exemplified in a scene where Smanga’s mother asks him when he will make her a grandmother. It’s a conversation every young person has to bear with. It’s an instinctual pressure that parents exert to continue our kind, and we can’t criticise them for it. Conversations about sex and children are broken gramophones somewhere deep inside us all. One day they start playing uncontrollably.

But the end feels rushed. It doesn’t show the audience how Noluthando’s father knows that Smanga is her love interest. It’s almost as if he telepathically knows who to target at the party. He then raises the issue of lobolo before even asking Smanga’s name. He’s either obsessed with money or doesn’t understand the romantic journey before lobolo is discussed. Maybe he’s saying: “If you want my daughter, you better make sure you’re successful.” Whichever it is, the father character is unsatisfactory,

In its impatience to end, the film never tells the audience whether Smanga eventually paid lobolo. So what’s the point of Amalobolo? Smanga is another hopeless romantic without a plan.

Artist: Okmalumkoolkat
Film: Amalobolo
Label, Year: Sjambok Studios and Blxckworx, 2018